Petra and Nabatean Water Management System

The majestic city of Petra has won its righteous place in the World New Seven Wonders. Regardless of UNESCO's reservations, the voting process represented a "global collective approach" of cultural diversity that was made by people and public participation.

Petra's uniquness was decribed by the New 7 wonders committee as a symbol of "engineering and protection". One of the most amazing achievements of the Nabateans, ancient builders of Petra was the fantastic water management system. The Nabtaens were the true people who were "romacing the stones" by carving the whole city from soft red-rose stones, and their achievement will now by conserved and highlighted forever.

Petra, located in the southwest Jordan, is halfway between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea in a mountainous region, named the Shera` mountains. These mountains dominate the Wadi Araba to the west. For over 200,000 years Petra has been a place for human habitation: the prehistoric periods are well documented, as are the later Islamic periods. Remains of Palaeolithic campsites, together with flint artefacts some 80-40,000 years old have been found in the surrounding hills. About 13,000 years ago, an early seasonal village was established at Beidha, just north of Petra. At about 7,000 BC, the site was rebuilt and occupied year-round by a group of Neolithic farmers. The presence of mineral resources also made the region important. Both bitumen and copper, the metal that opened up for humankind the technology of metals, have been mined and marketed since the most ancient times.

In the first millennium BC, the Edomites rose to prominence. During the 7th century BC, they built settlements, some fortified, in the mountains. Most notable of these are Umm al-Biyara and Tawilan, high above the Petra basin. Subject to Assyria, Babylonia and then Persia, Edom in the 3d century BC became a nucleus of an Arab state, the Nabataean kingdom. The Nabataeans made Petra the capital of their rich and powerful kingdom, filling it with spectacular buildings and carved façades, and making water flow to every corner of it. In AD 106, the Nabataeans acquiesced to the Roman general, Trajan. Petra became part of the Roman Province of Arabia. After the transfer of the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium in 330 under Constantine, Petra became the seat of a bishopric and by the 5th century AD, the administrative centre of the Byzantine province of Palaestina Tertia. Though Petra's wealth had gradually declined -- because of the redirection of trading goods via sea routes, and because of the greater traffic on the northern land routes that passed through Palmyra -- it remained a prosperous and important centre, and a provincial capital.

The gifted Nabateans managed to adapt to their harsh environmental conditions and discovered how to maximize the harnessing potential of rainwater to develop their livelihoods. They dug cisterns and reservoirs, built dams and diversion walls, laid out terraces and engineered channels and aqueducts which brought water from distant springs to the heart of the city.

It is interesting to note that the verb nabat in Arabic means for water "to percolate from underground to the surface; while its derivation anbat means "digging for water" or "drawing water from underground".

Further scientific analysis of the water management system can be viewed here

http://nabataea.net/water.html

where a variety of photos and field observations will reflect the amazing engineering skills of tha people of Petra which has been revitalised through the restoration of ancient water harvesting systems to be an eternal reminder of the greatness of this Arab civilization.